The man, the one dying, the man who is her father, his last breath escaping will reach her, penetrate. She is penetrated. She is lost. This girl, she is rowing in the clouds, the lake of the sky, the blue. This man, the man who would have been her father had he the nerve or the gall to speak with the woman he loved, had he done more than nod and carry armloads of lumber past her ribboned hair, had he confessed himself. Him, the sawdust of his father on the hair of his arms, on his cheeks, where there should be sun. This man, her would have been father, laced with unknowing and unlonging, dying now, unbreathing in a bed of goose down in the shapes of clouds, in white, in her flying.

About the author

J. A. Tyler is the author of the forthcoming novellas SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (ghost road press) and IN LOVE WITH A GHOST (willows wept press) as well as the chapbooks THE GIRL IN THE BLACK SWEATER (Trainwreck Press) and EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING OF DEATH (Achilles Chapbook Series). He is also founding editor of mud luscious / ml press. Visit: www.aboutjatyler.com.